for years it has been constantly on the lookout for new ways to occupy itself.
To-day it does business with one hand and distributes philanthropy with the other. As a direct commercial institution it operates railways, telegraph and telephone systems, coal mines, tourist steamers and motor coaches, and soon it will be selling electricity. It conducts hotels, sanatoriums, life, fire, and accident insurance offices. It is a banker, money-lender, landlord, and public trustee. As an indirect commercialist it aids dairymen by inspecting and grading their produce; it aids stockmen by keeping blooded stock for breeding; and it assists beekeepers and poultrymen by giving them free instruction.
As an altruistic institution it has established old-age and widows' pensions, superannuation funds for its employees, national endowments for pensions and education, national scholarships, and a national. State-subsidized provident fund. It has provided general protection and assistance for the laborer and assisted passages for immigrants. Industrial peace it has secured by arbitration and conciliation.
In the exercise of its purely philanthropical functions, the New Zealand Government's most noteworthy act is its gift of old-age pensions. These, which now number more than sixteen thousand, are paid to all persons who are more than sixty-five years of age and who have resided in New Zealand continuously for twenty-five years, barring allowances for absences from the country.
